Living with Middle East Media Bias - an egregious example in Reuters.

By Ami Isseroff

Media bias is apparently an immovable fact of news reporting on the Middle East. I am not talking about doctored photos, use of hate words like "Israel Occupation Forces" and "Apartheid Wall" in more more extremist publications. I am referring to a pervasive standard of more subtle mendacity that we have come to accept. Like people condemned to live near a pigsty or a chemical plant, we have become so used to the stench that we hardly notice it. In the same way, Jews in other times became accustomed to wearing a yellow star, and black people in southern United States understood that they must ride in the back of the bus. That's just the way things are. For many years, black Americans also knew that every time one of them committed a crime, newspapers would be sure to write "A Negro held up a gas station," "A Negro killed a shop owner," but they would never specify the "race" of a "white" perpetrator.

Here is an example of modern Jim Crow. Yesterday, two terror attacks took place in the West Bank. In one, Palestinian Arabs attacked border guards at a checkpoint and killed a border policeman. In another, Palestinian Arabs entered a civilian Yeshiva in the community of Kfar Etzion and tried to kill students there. The students were armed though, and they overcame and killed their attackers.

The Reuters report of this incident is below. It is not outstandingly anti-Israel, just biased and hateful in an ordinary pedestrian way. A casual reader might not notice much bias unless it was pointed out. What do we see here? The headline tells you that two Palestinians and one Israeli was killed. Clearly it is another case of the Israeli Goliath victimizing the oppressed Palestinian David. That is how those lopsided casualty figures pile up - incident by incident.

The lede paragraph tells us that "Jewish settlers shout dead two Palestinians" - without telling us why. It also tells you that "gunmen" (of unidentified origin - maybe Jewish) Killed an Israeli Border Guard (religion and ethnic affiliation unspecified.

Not until many paragraphs later, if you have patience to read that far, does Reuters tell you how the "Palestinians" (of unknown religion) were killed. And when they do tell you, they write, "an army spokeswoman said," and "Israel radio said" as though these are possibly unsubstantiated allegations. The facts therefore are reduced to the same level of credibility as "Martians landed in my back yard, UFO enthusiast IMA Nut said," and "Jews are responsible for the French revolution," Hamas radio said.

Note too, the number of times the words "settler" and "settlement" appear in this article. Reuters has "settlers" on the brain, but they would not think of referring to the Palestinians (possibly Jewish since their ethnic and religious identification is not mentioned - or maybe they were Quakers?) as "terrorists" or even militants.

Two Palestinians, Israeli killed in W.Bank incidents
http://www.reuters.com/article/featuredCrisis/idUSL24706167
(Adds Israeli border policeman killed)

JERUSALEM, Jan 24 (Reuters) - Jewish settlers shot dead two Palestinians and gunmen killed an Israeli border policeman in two separate incidents in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, medical and security services said.

Police said Palestinian gunmen shot an Israeli paramilitary border policeman near the Shuafat refugee camp near Jerusalem and that he died of his wounds at the scene.

A woman, also from the Israeli security services, received moderate to serious gunshot wounds in the same incident, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Israel Radio reported that a large number of police and soldiers were combing the area, searching for the gunmen.

In the second incident, settlers overpowered and shot dead two Palestinians who infiltrated a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank, an army spokeswoman said.

Israel radio said the Palestinians had stabbed two settlers at the Kfar Etzion settlement, not far from Bethlehem, before being shot, and a hospital spokeswoman in Jerusalem said the settlers' injuries were light to moderate. (Writing by Ori Lewis; Editing by Tim Pearce)

Admittedly, it is possible to extract the true version of what happened from the above story. However, any neutral or naive person would come away with the idea that all of the deaths were the fault of "Jewish Settlers," who perhaps have a "narrative" that alleges that Palestinians attacked them.

Ami Isseroff

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.